© 2013 SMPTE

Purpose of Today’s Meeting

• Most Sections are in the process of preparing their programs for the upcoming meeting season

• Today’s call is about sharing ideas for regular meetings and other Section activity

• A few Sections have volunteered to present but feel free to add your experiences!

© 2013 SMPTE

Section Meetings and Activities

• General meeting topics you’ve done• Theme nights like Post-NAB, Gadget Night

etc.• Join meetings• Special meetings such as a technical

conference• Social events• Events involving students or educational

institutions• Tours• Other activities of interest

© 2013 SMPTE

BUT FIRST SOME HOUSEKEEPING………

© 2013 SMPTE

ESC Survey ResultsIf you could select only one topic for a full-day seminar or multi-week virtual course offering for SMPTE to offer in 2015, which of the following topics would you choose?

Answer Options Response Percent

Response Count

Essential Color Science 4.3% 2

Modern Display Technologies and Types 4.3% 2

Essential Video Principles and Applications (For IT Professionals and Others)

4.3% 2

Cloud/Distributed Production and Post 8.7% 4

Video over IP in Professional Media Facilities (including live production)

23.9% 11

Software Define Networks/Virtualization  in Professional Media Facilities

10.9% 5

Essential Image Processing 0.0% 0

Understanding UHDTV-1, UHDTV-2, 2k, 4k, 8k systems19.6% 9

Understanding Key SMPTE Standards 2.2% 1

Principles of High Dynamic Range, Expanded Color Gamut and Higher Frame Rates

13.0% 6

Principles of Storage and Long-term Archive 0.0% 0

Light: Science & Applications 2.2% 1

Audio Principles and Application 6.5% 3

Other 0.0% 0

Other (please specify) 2

answered question 46

© 2013 SMPTE

Toronto Sections – The Meetings - General

• Audio Related– Joint meeting with AES

• Audio Loudness / Concert Hall

• Video Related– Joint meeting with Avid / Final Cut Pro User Group

• Cloud Editing / Media Management

• Film Related– Joint meeting with CSC

• High Frame Rate / Single Chip Cameras / Solid State Digital Recorders

• Educational– Updates and discussion from various Post Secondary institutions

• Gadget Evening– Participants invited to show cutting edge products and ideas

• Conference and Trade show updates– Panel discussions

• NAB, IBC, Fall Conference

© 2013 SMPTE

Toronto Sections – The Meetings - Extras

• Boot Camp– Themed Topics

• 2012 - The Expanding Universe of Broadcasting• 2014 – Motion Media for the 21st Century

• Section Year End Meeting– Meeting and BBQ– Facility Tour

• CTV, Deluxe Post Production

• Holiday Party– Refreshment - Upscale– Facility Tour and Meeting

• Technicolor, TIFF Bell Lightbox

© 2013 SMPTE

Toronto Sections – What Are We Learning

• Boot Camp– Generates new members. This year 6 new members– Generates funds

• Special Meetings– Special events such as facility tours, June BBQ and Holiday Party are members

only events• Update section mailing list

– Send meeting notices to all past members. Keep them informed on what is going on

• Educational – Sending meeting notices to all Educational Institutions. We do have student

members• Members at Large group

© 2013 SMPTE

Toronto Sections – Challenges

• Running out of facilities to provide tours.• Keeping the topic current.

– Sochi Olympics– Drones– Second Screen Technology– IPTV– Trade show updates

• Fortunate to have a regular venue to hold our meetings• We provide a pizza dinner before every meeting. Gets

the people out. The after work crowd

UK Section

Meetings• Three factors to ensure a successful meeting:

1. A good informal gathering with a wide range of people from across the industries/young and old etc.

2. A good presentation(s) that gets you thinking 3. A goodly number for the space; we look typically

for 60+ in London 40+ elsewhere

On this three meetings stand out…

The First was the Bill Lovell Memorial Lecture given by Franz Kraus MD of Arri

• Although billed as the History of the Alexa ....after reviewing Bill”s contribution to the industry (he was Product Manager for Alexa (and before that H Engineering BBC films) - Franz looked at all suspects of digital cinematography and issues like HDR and gamut (and some HFR) from the development of the film camera to electronic and also the projector becoming electronic...

• We also had displays of cameras including the new Amira much to the delight of the students – it was its second outing after IBC!

• We had about 84 people attending of which about 20 were students/younger and we had a good number of Cameramen....

• Bill Lovell died suddenly in a church meeting in March 2012...

2. Meeting at which the BBC Academy launched its College of Technology

• The speakers were the acting Controller Technology BBC News (for about 50+minutes) and the MD of Globelynx (10 mins) – and the topic was Video over IP - which was done from the uses of IT for news/from strange places

• This was deliberately positioned so it would complement the regional seminar

• We had more people than the 75 places!

3. Meeting at Ericsson’s Factory In Southampton

• We did have Barbara Lange and Matthew Goldman and about 20 from Ericsson – about 25 students and about 30 drawn widely from the locality and a few from London (about 60+ miles)

• The topic was Standards Conversion – being the topic of winning paper at IBC.....

• Being given in a very good if light-hearted way... • We filled the canteen the largest space!!!! – Ericsson had

demos of UHD tests...

Other Features• Some of our meetings, we combine a short tour of the facilities as well as

a speaker (usually from the facility)• This is basically start tours at say 6:15 and the Speaker at 7pm as usual or

says7:15... • Or do a say 45 min. talk and then tours or start earlier to have a talk and

tour...• A key feature is that the tour and the talk may not be on the same topic!!! • (Eg. the year before we did a talk on HEVC with a tour of BSkyB uplink and

this year we have a tour of the leading film school facility before a panel discussion....)

The Topics Have Been• A miscellany of what BskyB are doing – energy efficient buildings, UHD

test, media familiarity for school and personalised advert insertion at the set top box – then a tour of the studio centre (and drinks!)

• The BBC IP Studio which is video over IP and related matters – after a tour of the R&D labs with demonstration on UHD, DVB-T2, and something I cannot remember!

• Broadcasting to the British’s forces anywhere in the world – and then we saw their studio centre

• This started earlier as it was just outside London and we got there before the rush hour traffic!

• We tend to have a few “in the country meeting in June

Failures!

• We have tried one visit – it was out of London in a strange direction – and only 6 not the 12 we had thought turned up – only one from the locality – the rest travelled from London and beyond. It as Essex university – but we have taken two of the things we saw and are putting them on as a meeting in London in Jan 2015...

• Visits will move up our priority when we have more people organising meetings – but we do not want to dilute the success of a monthly meeting (we would have visits as extras)

• The other numbers failure was the “First steps in industry” – which had students being the events crew. It was also streamed to about 100 people – but there were only a few say just over a dozen in the audience alight mainly Fellows and high end members!!! There is always a danger that no one will turn up to "worthy topics"

• But the event itself was a great success and of high quality! • Note only some meetings are suitable for streaming – and on this one we had twitter

interaction Q&A